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Chuck, I second that. If someone like Bernie Sanders is working his ass off in our behalf (not the .01% and not the corporations), he is more than entitled to a lifetime appointment as far as I'm concerned. Therefore I am adamantly against term limits. Sorry "figalicious"! - AIW
mark s -- Don't say nothing. New Balance is constantly asking that tariffs not be reduced so they can compete against Nike.
Also, insurance is a very different commodity. There are countries and states that have outlawed insurance companies.
The only problem with that is there ain't nothing American made. It's like the polar ice caps, we've reached the tipping point of no return.
figalicious -- I cannot support any movement that is trying to get rid of Bernie Sanders.
Chi Matt -- First thanks for not leaving. When you stopped commenting for a few days, hardly anyone commented. Now, back to the debate.
.Myself I think the best thing we can do about it is to use the marketplace and not appeal to patriotism. The policies (laws to be passed) to bring in the markeplace on this problem are essentially repealing all the tax structures introduced by the Reagan Administration. At the top of list for this problem is to raise tariffs. There are currently around 20,000 tariffs on the books (I just listened to Thom's podcast from Monday, May 19). The average tariff is now around 2%. Before Reagan, from George Washington until Reagan the average tariff ranged between 29 and 32%. Because we buy most everything from overseas, I would recommend raising the tariffs a little each year.
Matt, what's this? I found it on one of last week's blogs when I was cleaning up my laptop..
Matt, that kind of outsourcing is a big problem in our society. It is only done to circumvent collective bargaining and labor law and the only reason the client firm saves any money doing it is because the contracted firm isn't party to the collective bargaining agreement with the client firm's employees' union and so subjects its employees to substandard pay labor practices.
IOW, it saves money by paying someone else to screw workers for them. It's probably one of the biggest banes to the labor movement today and one of the biggest reasons labor in this country is being so beaten back and the middle class so decimated. What isn't being offshored is being outsourced. It's nothing but systemetized scabbing and strikebreaking.
I spent nine years fighting this kind of shit when I organized temporary workers. You gotta come up with a better solution than that.
CMatt: I think the entire banking process can be conducted via computer without all the impressive bricks and mortar. A good processor setup might be able to handle NYC (or Chicago?) as a state function without the cut off-the-top by the banksters. BTW, check out 'ted.com' and search for 'William Black' about 'how to rob a bank.'
There is no reason to moralize, Matt. Single parenting isn't a problem for better off families, only impoverished ones. In a more just, more socialist society it wouldn't be a problem for anyone.
Nor are opiates for the masses necessary. European societies do very well and very few there have any faith in any churching.
I walked or bicycled to football and basketball practice in grade school and fees can be picked up by society, the taxpayers!
Every other 1st world country successfully provides health coverage to each of their citizens with cheaper and better results regarding quality. Is it a coincidence that ours is the only "system" based on the profit motive? Need I say, "free enterprise" does not solve all problems?
You should look up "World Cruise ship". It's a permanent-residence cruise ship for the ultra wealthy. They literally spend their lives floating around the world. Kind of goes back to the whole "elitists no longer need the working class" thing.
I know. What does it say about society when more people show up for a midnight release of a video game than for a protest for worker's rights? To me, and I've said this before, but it seems that the "war against workers" or however you want to term it is a complete victory for corporations.
They're not so dire that we're getting into an ark (and keep in mind, movies like that are works of fiction, if that were to happen Euros would probably be worthless, we would, in effect, be returning to an earlier level of technology and the workers who built the ark would feel their power and keep posession and control of the fruit of their labor) - just yet.
Escapism is indeed a problem and impediment to any movement building and our society provides much tempting opportunity for it.
But, I can see it now - someone would throw in a wedge issue on that list of "musts", like: your state MUST allow late-term abortions. People take their polar positions, and nothing gets done again.
ChicagoMatt: You are absolutely correct about the population problem. We are spending more time, effort, money and worry about vanishing resources, which is most certainly why resources are vanishing. Nobel Laureate Richard Smalley is mentioned in Popular Science this month in an article about water as saying that the top ten problems we face are [in this order]: 1. energy, 2. water, 3. food, 4. environment, 5. poverty, 6. terrorism and war, 7. disease, 8. education, 9. democracy, and number 10: population.
My husband and I discuss this issue all the time. We agree that population--over-population--is our biggest problem and threat and it needs to be addressed first before we can solve, but still work on solving the other nine.
But I will add that when ALL the customers and ALL the workers are paid the same measley wages, business is not very likely to profit in the long-term. It's just simple logic.
Actually, it was 1865-1940 with the biggest being before 1900. That period, however, was, you might say, less successful. The workers actions, massive as they were, were always beaten back and crushed.
The first eight hour law in Illinois was passed and signed into law in 1867 but was completely unenforced - because political and business elites in Illinois decided that enforcement of it would result in capital flight from Illinois. Great labor upheavals ensued on the ten year anniversaries of the event following depressions of the 1870s and 1880s which almost succeeded but for some myopic, sold out leadership of the workers and for the Haymarket Affair, i.e., the bombing of line of Chicago police moving to violently suppress a peaceful workers' rally, presumably by a militant worker, in 1887. That event was like a 9/11 or burning of the Reichstag, a "shocking" act of terrorism that gave a greenlight to government officials to suppress any workers' movement without regard to constitutional rights and freedoms.
It wasn't until FDR, in 1938, that an eight hour law was passed and enforced and that was nationally with the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938.
"Tribal" or family orientation are among the features of a society that capitalism breaks down. That doesn't mean that different groups, not so affected by capitalism couldn't act to create socialism with that common inclination toward it. European societies are very diverse and have succeeded in creating at least close fascimiles of socialism. I think your presumption is unfounded.
Anyway, giving you your theory, why wouldn't then a decentralized, locally oriented socialism be possible?
I agree. Fifteen million children of all races in America are living without a father in the home. That's about one-third of all school-aged children. Fixing that would go a long way towards fixing the education gap. Only about 20 percent of all Americans go to church regularly. Having faith in something other than government might also help the problem. Studies also show that students who play sports in school do better academically. But playing sports requires a parent who can take you there, pick you up, afford the fees, etc...
Righties call this "societal rot". The only fix for it that I see is to bring back the manufacturing base. And even if it started today, it would take one or two generations for things to get better. Interesting to think and talk about, but the best thing we can actually do about it is buy American-made products.
Ever seen the movie 2012? You know that scene where the elites are getting into the "Ark", and this one Shiek has a room all to himself, for which he paid one billion euros, and the workers who built the ark can't get in to save themselves? This kind of reminds me of that. Of course, I don't think things are nearly as dire Thom and the Progressives would have us believe. (I know, Alice, you're just going to say that I am going through the world with blinders on.) But seriously, I know people who make minimum wage. I know people who are living paycheck-to-paycheck. Whatever little frustration they have with the current economic model manifests itself in physical distractions and escapism (sex, alcohol, video games, movies, etc...), NOT the "revolution in the streets" that would be necessary for sweeping Progressive reforms to take place.
Upscale young people move into all gentrified neighborhoods. Lincoln Park is the realtors model template. Loyola Park (realtors creation of East Rogers Park), Uptown, Wicker Park, Humbolt Park, Logan Square, the West Side by the United Center, all follow suit. The demolition of Cabrini Green, Henry Horner, Stateway Gardens and many other housing projects is part of it. Chicago acting as a national model for the elimination of public housing is part of it.
I don't think they move back to the suburbs. You don't say "yuppie" anymore because a lot of them aren't young urban professionals anymore but are now married, raising kids and grandkids - like yourself and your family.
Income redistribution is "unfair" and "work ethic redistribution" fair only on unfounded presumption of equality of opportunity and just compensation for all work, both of which don't happen. Whatever you think of the parents of children it is not fair to deny children educational opportunity for it.
Quite a lot of factors influence educational results, most of them to do with level of wealth or poverty of a community. That's why education issues are also labor issues, health issues, housing issues and every other kind of issues. More funding for more targeted educational programs can sometimes compensate for other disadvantages but ultimately the problem is societal and systemic, not isolated to educational funding alone.
Wow. That's twice I've been told I'm right today. I feel like I'm being set up. :)
That, in itself, would seem to give them some sort of common bond - they were all immigrants. And do you see the U.S. Labor and Socialist movements as long-term successes? I presume here we are talking about the movements from the 1900s-1940s, roughly. I know the usual things that people like to point out that we got from those movements - weekends, overtime, safe work places, etc... So I guess those would fall under "success".I would argue that that is because less-industrialized people are typically more tribal/family-oriented. That goes along with my theory that Socialism would work great with a homogenous group. Or in small groups. (State's Rights again.)
Thom often brings up the Bank of North Dakota as an example of how banking should be done - run by the state. I hear that and I think, "North Dakota has a small, mostly rural population. Yup. It would work there. But try that in, say, New York, and I'm not so sure."
DAnne- I guess I was mostly writing to Thom. "Meta" is a term used in NLP and which we also find lately used in the term "meta-data" having to do with NSA spying, for instance. It means "above" conceptually. For instance, the constitution is "meta" to all other law. All other laws passed by legislatures must comport well with constitutional provisions. My previous comment expands to -- all contracts have multiple layers of meta-law without which the contracts could not exist. Hope this helps.
I don't really have the time; but, here goes my answer to the government versus private sector having a monopoly question. Monopoly is defined as total control over a commodity or service by one company or one group of people.
The "Commons" are any commodity or service that are NEEDED by all the people. That is, a commodity or service 'commonly' needed by everyone. These can be further distinguished by 'vital commons' and 'luxury commons.'
Vital commons are commodities and services necessary for life. They include air, water, food, housing, healthcare, and education, amongst other things.
Luxury commons are commodities and services desired in life. They include hobbies, toys, vacations, jewelry, furniture, vehicles, equities, and all manner of material possessions, amongst other things.
The government is a group of people who are answerable to everyone in the country. A company is a group of people who are answerable to themselves, their shareholders, and their customers. A company is not answerable to the entire country. That would only be possible with fascism and a government overthrow. For that reason, if any private entity deals in a vital commons commodity or service they have to be directly and severely regulated by the government.
Also, by that reasoning, if that said vital commons commodity--FOR ANY REASON--fails to be delivered to the people in the most fair, safest, and economical way possible, it is therefore the responsibility of the government to step in and take over that common. Anything less is to shirk its responsibility to the group that it is answerable to--WE THE PEOPLE.
Therefore, any monopoly in the commons by the government differs from a private entity because the government represents ALL THE PEOPLE and private entities do not.
Since part of the commodities AT&T and Directv deal in is the news--and the news clearly falls under the vital commons category of 'education'--it is also the responsibility of government to strictly regulate it. Failing to do that successfully, it must stand in and take over that aspect of the commons.
Heathcare, on the other hand, is clearly in the public domain and not the private domain. Especially when it has been compromised and exploited to the extent that it has. In this case, the inability of the government to take over this resource is the problem. Not doing so is failure of their charter with WE THE PEOPLE.
You may be right about that. Noam Chomsky once paraphrased a Businessweek - I believe it was - artice advising business owners that they probably get about 80% of their business from about 20% of their customers and that they were better off without that other 80% of customers. In short, it's the upscale, moneyed customers that matter. That's a major reason why the mainstream media is so biased because advertisers don't much care about that lower 80%.
The Henry Ford model is what's good for the overall economy but the "elites", i.e., the decision and policy makers, may well not be interested in the overall economy but only in their own economy, especially with globalization as a worldwide elite of billionaires - Thom's billionairistan - becomes apparent that has no loyalty whatsoever to their country of origin or any adopted country but, rather, behaves as a nation unto itself willing to sacrifice the majority populations of all nations and their economies for the sake of their world ruling class ends.
That behavior, in the past, always resulted in capitalism destroying itself as all the money would fall into fewer and fewer hands and collapse of its own weight and make it necessary for quasi socialist measures as the New Deal and Square Deal of the Roosevelts to be implemented in order to save it. Now, however, the Global economy may make the elites less concerned about that and this latest crash resulted in none of that kind of remedying and, instead, the U.S, economy seems to have been written off and abandoned.
ChicagoMatt ~ My apologies for venting on you. You are right. You are WAY more articulate. I also respect the fact that you don't label yourself. Labels are for people who have a hard time thinking for themselves. 'Don't ask me, ask my label. They do all my thinking for me.' Which is why I too avoid labelling myself. I want to address every issue separately and keep people guessing as to my opinion. That forces me to think each issue through. A lot of work; but, it sure pays off in the end. Keep up the good work! I hope there are no hard feelings.
Your presumptions are not founded. The U.S. labor movements and movements for socialisism were composed predominately of a diverse collection of immigrant worker groups. Those examples of successful socialist states are not as homogenous as you may presume having large immigrant populations from other continents and commonwealth members from former colonies. There seems, overall, to be no foundation at all for your presumptions other than, perhaps, to accomodate your own personal racial suspicions.
Socialism, moreover, is very natural to all people and the less industrialized a people is the more inclined toward it its population tends to be.
You are absolutely right as rain on the wedge issues. Democrats, traditionally, try to build unity, bridging what are sometimes ancient divides between people resulting in, sometimes, very uneasy coalitions to take up the "people's issues". The Republicans, then, have a very easy job of reigniting those ancient animosities to tear down those coalitions sometimes just by saying a few words like "gay marriage" or "Willie Horton" or "welfare queen".
You may, in fact, be at least somewhat right on the first point, also, I'm just used to people making that argument rather carelessly and purely to project their own racial biases and animosities on to the situation. I reacted reflexively.